The Otto Mainzer collection documents the life and professional activities of Otto Mainzer, lawyer, writer, and financial consultant; the collection also sheds light on the life of Otto Mainzers wife, Ilse Wunsch, a musician and a teacher. The collection includes correspondence, financial, vital, immigration, and legal documents, notes, photographs, printed materials, and writings, by Otto Mainzer and Ilse Wunsch as well as a small number of manuscripts by other authors. The collection is divided into two distinct sections, one pertaining to Otto Mainzer and the other to Ilse Wunsch
Otto Mainzer, lawyer, writer, and a financial consultant was born in 1903 in Frankfurt am Main. He received his basic schooling in Frankfurt am Main and continued his education at Frankfurt, Munich, and Berlin universities, studying jurisprudence. After receiving his degree Otto Mainzer worked as a lawyer at the Berlin Court of Appeals. He immigrated to Paris in 1933 where he devoted his time to writing. It was in Paris that he began working on his monumental work of non-fiction, Die sexuelle Zwangswirtschaft: ein erotisches Manifest, which he eventually managed to publish in 1981. In the mid-thirties Otto Mainzer published one volume of poems entitled, Der zaertliche Vorstoss: in sechsundsechzig Gedichten. During the same period he wrote his first novel, Prometheus. He had to wait for forty years before it was published by Stroemfeld/Roter Stern in 1989. After the outbreak of World War II in 1939 Otto Mainzer was interned at a French concentration camp for over a year before being allowed to leave. He arrived in New York in late 1941. Shortly after his arrival, Otto Mainzer moved to Chicago to work as a graphologist for the Spiegel of Chicago. It was in Chicago that he met his future wife, Ilse Wunsch. Soon after Otto Mainzer and Ilse Wunsch moved back to New York. Otto Mainzer devoted the rest of his life to writing and propagating his ideas of human love and sexuality as an underlying stratum for all of the human interactions. The bulk of Otto Mainzers written legacy was never published. He died in New York in 1995
Ilse Wunsch was born in 1911 in Berlin, Germany. She started studying piano at a very early age. After graduating from high school, Ilse Wunsch continued her studies at the Teachers Training College. In 1936 she left for Japan, for concertizing and teaching. She eventually moved to Chicago where she continued her studies at the Chicago Musical College, in due course earning a Master of Music degree. After meeting Otto Mainzer, the couple moved to New York, where Ilse resumed her post graduate studies. In New York, Ilse Wunsch was a member of the faculty of the New York College of Music, Stern College for Women, teaching piano and theory. Later she became an Assistant Professor at New York University, School of Education, Music Education Division. Ilse Wunsch was also an author of a number of books on music theory and pedagogy; she also composed a number of music pieces; and finally she wrote autobiographical non-fiction dedicated to her husband, Otto Mainzer
Finding aid online
Otto Mainzer's collection of poems "Der zaertliche Vorstoss in sechsundsechzig Gedichten" is available in the LBI library (r PT 2613 R825 Z3)
